SHAME ON BOTH OF YOU, CLINT HILL AND CHRIS MATTHEWS

So a Hardball producer is married to the granddaughter of an AF general what's your point?

Len, I think I avoided making a specific point, at least in that regard. I was just sharing what I've found.My main point is the people who "get it" are considered "savvy" and they are not reduced to appearing shrill, as Doug Horne appears, at leas to the people writing the checks that finance the trapppings of success of the savvy, the trusted.

That granddaughter of an AF general "gets it," so does Obama. Bear in mind that another coincidence is that shemarried:".....Reiss was previously the senior broadcast producer of "Nightly News" from 2002-2005 and producer and senior producer at "Dateline NBC" from 1994-2002....." And before that, Elizabeth Wilner, granddaughter of an AF genera, worked for another man trusted to manage another network's evening news broadcasts. For more than six years, she and or her husband John Reiss have been managing political policy, (and her husband also produces) at Chris Matthew's cable network, MSNBC.

There is always some new tidbit,” Mark Halperin said. “You just have to ferret it out.” It was the first day of the Republican Convention, in New York, and although the sun had not yet risen, he had already laid out all he needed for his peculiar trade—three television monitors, a laptop, a BlackBerry, a cell phone, a pager—in a makeshift space on the fifth floor of Madison Square Garden. Outside the Washington establishment, Halperin is known, if at all, as a journalist (his official title is political director of ABC News), but within it he is considered the leading purveyor of inside dope. As the founder of The Note, a political news digest that appears on the ABC News Web site each weekday morning by eleven o’clock, he collects information the way bookies keep tabs on the latest odds, or photographers chase the fading light. He collects polling data, no matter what the time of year or the size of the sample. He collects any rise or fall—even the smallest blip—in the projected electoral count. He also collects dirt, such as the unsealed divorce records of Jack Ryan, a Senate candidate from Illinois, which detailed visits to an alleged “sex club,” and which forced Ryan out of the race. He collects other things, too: arcane statistics from documents that government agencies churn out but few read; embargoed political books (The Note footnoted Kitty Kelley’s gossipy portrait of the Bush family twenty-four hours before it was released, beneath the teaser “Here Kitty, Kitty”); wire reports; radio transcripts; pieces of legislation; the guest lists of Georgetown dinner parties; and other minutiae that are of little interest to the ordinary citizen but are essential to his calling (“2:00 p.m.: Sen. John Kerry and his family hold a barbeque at the Heinz Farm, Fox Chapel, Pa”). Mostly, though, Halperin collects leaks and scuttlebutt from the campaign consultants, strategists, pollsters, pundits, and journalists who make up the modern-day political establishment, or what Halperin calls “the Gang of 500.”......

......As Halperin was flourishing inside the new establishment, his father’s career was foundering. After the election, Clinton nominated Morton Halperin to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense. Halperin later told National Public Radio that he hoped to use the position to “try to do things which really do affect people’s lives, to try to reduce some of the amount of suffering.” Many stalwarts of the old establishment backed him, including two former Secretaries of State, four former Secretaries of Defense, and two former C.I.A. chiefs.Nevertheless, Halperin was quickly set upon by conservative partisans and their operatives, who tried to use his nomination to subvert Clinton and, in the process, destroy Halperin’s character. They used leaks and innuendo to hint that the C.I.A. had “a secret dossier,” which disclosed his “subversive activities.” Though the C.I.A. insisted that no such dossier existed, unnamed sources claimed they had “heard” accusations that included the words “killer” and “traitor.” “It’s very hard for the truth to catch up with a lie,” Halperin complained at the time.Yet, for many reporters in Washington, it was simply another scandalous story. Al Kamen, who now writes the Washington Post’s “In the Loop” column—which, as a chronicle of the doings of lobbyists and political consultants, is, in many ways, a prototype of The Note—wrote, with another reporter, a story about the smearing. Its lead encapsulates the inside dopester’s world view: “It’s high Washington drama.” Morton Halperin eventually withdrew his name from consideration.Mark Halperin, meanwhile, continued to rise at ABC. In 1997, he was named the news division’s political director. One evening three years later, in a testament to his status, Vice-President Al Gore, who was then running for President, stopped by the Upper West Side apartment that Halperin shares with Avrich, near Central Park, trailed by the Secret Service and his campaign staff. “I led him upstairs and offered him a Heineken,” Halperin recalled. “He asked me who I thought he was going to pick as a running mate, and I said, ‘Gephardt.’ He said, ‘Why?’ And then I showed him some of my political memorabilia and we drank our beers and chatted for a while.”....Yet perhaps the ultimate consequence of The Note’s style of political coverage is not the trivialization of important stories but, rather, the inflation of trivial ones. With the media’s ever-growing appetite for new information, there has been a gradual slackening of the definition of political inside dope. A little story—Killer Joe Lockhart’s hiring, say, or Karl Rove’s breakfast strategy sessions—is presented as a big story on The Note, an “absolute must read.” (Halperin’s own memo was hailed in the blogosphere as a “Rathergate-style bombshell.”) But, as Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, says of The Note, “It couldn’t be more transient, like all gossip; but in politics, as in finance, gossip acquires the authority of superstition.”

Later in the morning of that first day of the Republican Convention, after Halperin filed The Note, he roamed the floor along with other reporters. Because conventions no longer choose the parties’ nominees, they have mainly become a vehicle for stagecraft, for branding. “So far, there isn’t a whole lot of real news,” Halperin said.Still, there were hundreds of reporters looking for something. They had taken over entire wings and floors and corridors of Madison Square Garden. An estimated fifteen thousand media people were present—more than six times the number of delegates. Some reporters were from imitators of The Note. CNN had started The Morning Grind; CBS had The Washington Wrap; NBC had lured away one of Halperin’s original co-authors, Elizabeth Wilner, to startFirst Read. The Note, in turn, had recently launched Noted Now, which posts instant bulletins day and night—“a twenty-four-hour Note,” as Halperin called it.There were so many insiders that, it seemed, there were no outsiders anymore. By noon, many reporters at the Convention had already read that morning’s Note and come up to Halperin to talk about it. A reporter from the Washington Post, whose story had been cited, said, “Thanks for the mention.”“Always a pleasure,” Halperin said.The night before, Halperin and the Post reporter had both attended a birthday party for John McCain, at which various fixtures of the media establishment had turned up: Tim Russert, Barbara Walters, Judy Woodruff, Chris Matthews. “I’ve never seen anything like it!” Halperin said. He recalled that he had been seated next to McCain’s aunt. “I was sitting on one side, and Charlie Rose was sitting on the other. It was pretty wild...........http://en.wikipedia....Morton_HalperinMorton H. Halperin (born June 13, 1938) is an American expert on foreign policy and civil liberties. He served in the Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton administrations and in a number of roles with think tanks and universities such as the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University. .....

......Kissinger soon lost faith in Halperin. A front page story in The New York Times on May 9, 1969, stated the United States had been bombing Cambodia, a neutral country. Kissinger immediately called Hoover to find out who might have leaked this information to the press. Hoover suggested Halperin and Kissinger agreed that was likely. That very day, the FBI began taping Halperin's phones at Kissinger's direction. (Kissinger says nothing of this in his memoirs and mentions Halperin in passing about four times.) Halperin left the NSC in September 1969 after only nine months, but the taping continued until February 1971. Halperin was also placed on Nixon's Enemies List. Taping revealed

The taping of Halperin's phone was not revealed until 1973, when it came out in Ellsberg's trial. He sued Nixon and won a symbolic $1 judgment in 1977 for the offense[3]......

http://www.salon.com...08/13/halperin/On July 8, 2008 — the day before the U.S. Senate voted for the new FISA bill — Morton Halperin wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times announcing that the bill “has my personal support” and that “it represents our best chance to protect both our national security and our civil liberties.” His Op-Ed was a great surprise to many people — not only because Halperin was formerly the head of the D.C. office of the ACLU, which vigorously opposed the bill; not only because virtually every other civil liberties group and every other civil libertarian in America also vehemently opposed the bill as a profound assault on the Fourth Amendment; and not only because the organization of which Halperin was (at the time) President — the Open Society Policy Institute (“OSPI”) — was so opposed to the FISA bill that (as Halperin reveals for the first time in my interview with him) they asked him to step down as President as a result.All those things are true, but those facts aren’t what was most baffling about Halperin’s Op-Ed. What made his Op-Ed particularly confounding was that a mere one month earlier — on June 9, 2008 — Halperin had signed a letter on behalf of OSPI, also signed by numerous other civil liberties and advocacy groups, in which he expressed steadfast opposition to the FISA “compromise” (which was then known as the “Bond compromise,” after GOP Sen. Kit Bond). A copy of that June 9 letter opposing the FISA bill, which Halperin joined on behalf of his group, is here (.pdf). ...............One of the purposes of the lawsuits was to learn more about the warrantless surveillance programs. There was always real doubt that the lawsuits would succeed in that objective given a variety of hurdles in addition to immunity including the State Secrets privilege. This objective will be more effectively accomplished by the requirement of the new Title II providing for the review by IGs of all previous warrantless surveillance and the release of a public report.Podcast can be heard here.Glenn Greenwald: My guest today is Morton Halperin, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, who has held various positions in numerous administrations over the years, and for several years was the director of the Washington office of the ACLU. Thanks for joining me this afternoon.Morton Halperin: My pleasure.......

GG: Let me just stop you for a minute, because actually there was an audit provision, and in fact the letter that you signed on June 9th said that — quote:

The Bond proposal does incorporate a few improvements, including an audit of illegal warrantless surveillance, and a provision reaffirming that FISA is the exclusive means by which foreign intelligence surveillance can be lawfully conducted. But these modest concessions do not offset the vast new unchecked surveillance powers that this bill confers on the government.

How is the final bill any different?MH: I’m not, that letter was signed on to by an organization that I was then working for. I am not prepared to defend the text of that letter – I did not understand that that was the purpose of this interview. The letter speaks for itself, and my op-ed speaks for itself. And I am not prepared to get into the specifics…GG: One of the things – and I won’t ask you about the specifics of the letter on the Bond proposal, but one of the things that did change – the only thing that I can see that changed, between June 9th — when all civil liberties groups in this coalition opposed the bill in its iteration at the time, and all those organizations and signatories to the letter continued to the end to oppose the bill, except for you. But what changed was that, between June 9th and July 9th, was that Barack Obama on June 20th came out and said he was going to support the ultimate FISA compromise.Did you have any conversations in the interim with the Obama campaign about whether or not that was a good idea, or whether you would end up helping them by defending the bill and lending your name to the ultimate compromise?MH: I had conversations with Obama’s Senate staff about the bill before he made his decision, and gave them my view on what the situation was.GG: Obama’s staff, were you advising them that the bill was a good bill to the Senate’s —

UPDATE: Several people have emailed to complain — correctly — that I was remiss in failing to note that Mort Halperin is the father of the incomparablyexecrable Mark Halperin, formerly of ABC News and now of Time. My apologies for the oversight. If there is any system more nepotistic and incestuous than our Beltway political and media institutions, I don’t know what it is.

One could argue that Mark Halperin, Political Director of ABC News (and author of a new book with John Harris, TheWashington Post's National Political Editor) is the living, breathing embodiment of the "mainstream media." In order to promote his book, he went on Hugh Hewitt's radio show for a three hour interview last night, and Hewitt spent the entire time trying to attack Halperin as one of the symbols of overwhelming, systemic left-wing bias in the "mainstream media."

The ironic problem for Hewitt? Halperin -- like so many of the most entrenched establishment journalists -- not only agrees with Hewitt about virtually everything, but was literally desperate to convince Hewitt that this is the case, that he is on Hewitt's side. In front of an approving Sean Hannity, Halperin last week announced his self-debasing quest "to prove to conservatives that we understand their grievances." He escalated that crusade by many levels with yesterday's interview.

So many "journalists" like Halperin seemingly have as their principal objective convincing right-wing extremists like Hewitt that they are good boys and girls and do their job in a way that pleases the Right. The effort is always tinged with self-flagellating confessions that they have not been Good enough -- they have been trying to be more fair to the Right, they insist, but they still need to do much better -- but these assurances are accompanied by pleas for the Right to recognize that they are not as bad as most of the other journalists.

Just survey some of these grotesquely obsequious pleas from Halperin for Hewitt to recognize Halperin as a good boy, along with Halperin's willingness to endorse the most inane right-wing myths in order to win that approval. This really is a vivid view into how the core of the national media thinks and behaves:......

http://mediamatters....ns/200610030008Here's how dishonest Beltway journalism has becomeOctober 03, 2006 3:53 pm ETEric BoehlertBooks about politics and the press don't come much more dishonest, or depressing, than the new tome hitting stores this week, The Way to Win (Random House). Written by corporate media bigwigs Mark Halperin, political director of ABC News and founder of its political newsletter The Note, and John F. Harris, national political editor of The Washington Post, the new digest -- it's their take on how to win the White House -- is already being toasted by celebrity journalists inside the Beltway, which in today's environment means the book politely re-enforces preferred conventional wisdom and graciously avoids asking tough questions about Republicans. The press corps also skates by in the eyes of Halperin and Harris, who continuously rewrite recent history in order to ensure that journalists shoulder little or no blame for D.C. pressroom disgraces such as Whitewater, the blatantly dishonest coverage heaped upon Al Gore's presidential campaign, and for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth hoax that ensnared Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential run.I say The Way to Win is dishonest because Halperin and Harris are obviously smart professionals who understand how politics and the press now (unfortunately) work in this country. Indeed, the two are celebrated as among Beltway journalism's best and brightest and are paid handsomely for reaching the pinnacle of their profession. Unfortunately, political journalism isn't what it used to be, and unfortunately, the duo opts to conform to the artificial guidelines that dictate public debate inside the Beltway today.That's precisely why CBS' Bob Schieffer has already flacked the book on Face the Nation, why Charlie Rose has invited the two for an intimate chat, and why the Way To Win D.C. book party was awash with boldface guests, as elites from the press and politics flocked to toast the latest re-writing of the conventional wisdom. It's because Halperin and Harris tell a reassuring story that Beltway players, particularly in the press, love to hear. And for anybody who still thinks there's an ounce of friction between the true media elites and the Beltway's mostly Republican ruling class, read The Way to Win and think again. The Beltway really has become a tension-free world where journalists and politicos bond effortlessly.Among the most important of Halperin and Harris's take-away tips -- their so-called "Trade Secret" -- is for candidates seeking the White House in 2008 to basically not act like Democrats. Specifically, Halperin and Harris stress that recent campaigns by Gore and Kerry failed because they lost control of their public image via the press, in sharp contrast to Bush's campaigns, which, thanks to the hard work of Karl Rove, were able to control their public image. What Halperin and Harris absolutely refuse to acknowledge is the willing role the press played in those key Democratic setbacks and the media's shrieking double standard that's been on display for the last decade.For instance, Halperin and Harris's simplistic analysis of the Swift Boat fiasco, as it is for every Democratic public relations loss detailed in the book, is that the Kerry camp should have just convinced the press to stop writing damaging stories. Halperin and Harris's purposefully naïve construct is that Kerry and his aides had the power to fix negative press coverage -- just like Gore and Clinton did before him -- but for some bewildering reason they failed to do it.......

Unless Doug Horne wants to end up like the bitter, frustrated, penny pinching Harold Weissberg in his old age, he ought to spend more time taking into account how it all works and who gets paid for doing what, and less time complaining about how betrayed he feels by the infotainment of irrelevant clown Chris Matthews of MSNBC infotainment. After all, their corporate media mission is to trivialize and rightisize everything they communicate to J6P.

If anyone reading ever gets to interview Clint, I wish he or she would ask why Hill is the only agent on the Queen Mary running boards wearing a bulletproof vest. The late Doug Weldon pointed this out in photos.

The title of Connie Kritzberg's story in the paper Dallas Times Herald, dated 11/23/63 was (Connie is still alive in May, 2012). This article is important for 2 reasons: 1) It shows the FBI was editing the copy of Dallas newspapers in real time on the night of 11/22/63 and 2) doctors described to Connie "neck wounds" as being entrance wounds.

"Neck Wounds Bring Death to President"

Here is how it began:

"Wounds in the lower front portion of the neck and the right rear side of the head ended the life of President John F. Kennedy, say doctors at Parkland Hospital.

Whether there were one or two wounds was not decided. The front neck hole was described as an entrance wound. The wound at the back of the head, while the principal one, was either an exit or tangentially exit wound. A DOCTOR ADMITTED THAT IT WAS POSSIBLE THERE WAS ONLY ONE WOUND."

Connie Kritzberg, reporter for the Dallas Times Herald, states that the FBI was editing her news reporting immediately following the JFK assassination, trying to make it appear as if there were just one shooter. Connie Kritzberg, who was a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald at the time of the assassination, had interviewed Dr. Malcolm Perry, who had said the throat wound had been an extrance wound, which would have indicated a shot from the front. When Kritzberg wrote an article about the assassination, she found that the FBI had added a sentence to her article after she turned it in on 11/22/63 to her editors for the 11/23/63 afternoon edition (Dallas Times Herald was the afternoon paper; the Dallas Morning News was the morning paper.) The FBI had added the sentence A DOCTOR ADMITTED THAT IT WAS POSSIBLE THERE WAS ONLY ONE WOUND." to her copy.

She is a critically important witness and her story is not well known. Larry Hancock knows her well. Connie Kritzberg was a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald; she interviewed the Parkland doctors who actually called her paper late in the afternoon on 12/22/63 after they were done giving interviews to other media.

I am guessing that Connie is age 78 now (2011 year). She has been a researcher herself over the years, knew Madeleine Brown quite well and Connie is in the "LBJ and Clint Murchison, Sr did it camp." Post assassination she went to work for one of the Murchison companies and she will tell you in 1963 - although Clint had had a stroke by then - he was fully able to conduct business (i.e. kill the president). He was not in the shape Joe Kennedy was in.

Kritzberg's story is an EXTREMELY important story. Basically she says that the FBI went to her editors and altered her story (inserting a sentence) to conform to the lone nutter propaganda they were pushing. Larry Hancock guesses this might have occurred around midnight, but it could have happened any time from 6PM Friday to perhaps 9AM in the morning.

The title of her story in the paper Dallas Times Herald, dated 11/23/63 was:

"Neck Wounds Bring Death to President"

Here is how it began:

"Wounds in the lower front portion of the neck and the right rear side of the head ended the life of President John F. Kennedy, say doctors at Parkland Hospital.

Whether there were one or two wounds was not decided. The front neck hole was described as an entrance wound. The wound at the back of the head, while the principal one, was either an exit or tangentially exit wound. A DOCTOR ADMITTED THAT IT WAS POSSIBLE THERE WAS ONLY ONE WOUND."

The sentence in all capital letters is the sentence the FBI added to her article according to Constance's editors who told her that around noon on Saturday 11/23, when she called in mad about the alteration of her article. She knew she had not written that sentence. She demanded to know WHO did and her editor said it was the FBI.

Connie's book is JFK Secrets From the Sixth Floor Window, which I highly recommend.

November Patriots also has a nice chapter at the end written by Madeleine Brown on the Texas Mafia. She recounts how she saw Malcolm Wallace target shooting at the gun range a few days before the JFK assassination.

Connie Kritzberg, author of "Secrets From The Sixth Floor," Kritzberg was a reporter at the "Dallas Times Herald" on November 22, 1963, and interviewed two significant figures in the assassination. She remained a reporter until the 1980s and has written several papers and two books on the assassination. She was certain of a cover-up from 1963 on. When working in Washington, D.C. in 1968, she was a volunteer in Bobby Kennedy's campaign for President until he was assassinated. TOPIC: November 22, 1963, The Dallas reporter's experiences included Dr. Malcolm Perry's statement that the neck wound was an entrance wound, and a coverup of the statement by the FBI.

Here is an email dated 5/11/11 from Connie Kritzberg:

“The information given you by Rob Morrow was true. I had been promoted from obituary writer to “Home Editor” but was called back to cityside to work in a rewrite slot covering the President’s visit. I interviewed Drs. Kemp Clark and Malcolm Perry, then wrote the “Neck Wounds” story. As I assume you know, reporters don’t write the headlines. Earlier in the afternoon, soon after the assassination, I had interviewed Mary Moorman and Jean Hill, and written their story. My last work on cityside that day was an on-the-street “mood” story.

I had the weekend off because of my main assignment to the women’s section. Saturday was the first day I saw wounds story. I was at home, and was startled by addition of one sentence: “A doctor admitted that it was possible there was only one wound.”I immediately called the city desk, believe the editor I talked to was Tom LaPere, Asst Editor. It was quiet—I asked, “Who added that sentence to my story?” He answered quickly, “The FBI.”I think I said something like, “OK.”

I am 79 years old, have slightly slurred speech, but brain still working.

Horne invents this whole scenario where Hill thought the wound was an EXIT for a bullet entering the front of the head.

He does us all a disservice, moreover, by making as though the Parkland doctors also thought the wound they thought was near the back of the head was an exit for a bullet entering elsewhere, presumably the front of the head.

You're doing the same thing you accuse Horne of doing, misrepresenting someone's statements. Horne did not say that Hill thought (i.e. has ever stated) that the large wound in the back of the head was an exit wound, nor does Horne say that the Parkland doctors thought (i.e. have ever stated) that the large wound in the back of the head was an exit wound. Horne's point is that everyone knows that large wounds such as Hill and the doctors described are exit wounds. Thus Hill would know it and the doctors would know it. That doesn't mean that they have ever said it, and Horne didn't say that they have. But now Hill says it was an entry wound, which is what got Horne so upset with him.

I don't know if Hill is just lying about what he thinks, or if he has some strange theory about the bullet entering the back of the head and causing the head somehow to explode in back instead of out the front. But I find him and Matthews just as disgusting as Horne does.

Horne invents this whole scenario where Hill thought the wound was an EXIT for a bullet entering the front of the head.

He does us all a disservice, moreover, by making as though the Parkland doctors also thought the wound they thought was near the back of the head was an exit for a bullet entering elsewhere, presumably the front of the head.

You're doing the same thing you accuse Horne of doing, misrepresenting someone's statements. Horne did not say that Hill thought (i.e. has ever stated) that the large wound in the back of the head was an exit wound, nor does Horne say that the Parkland doctors thought (i.e. have ever stated) that the large wound in the back of the head was an exit wound. Horne's point is that everyone knows that large wounds such as Hill and the doctors described are exit wounds. Thus Hill would know it and the doctors would know it. That doesn't mean that they have ever said it, and Horne didn't say that they have. But now Hill says it was an entry wound, which is what got Horne so upset with him.

I don't know if Hill is just lying about what he thinks, or if he has some strange theory about the bullet entering the back of the head and causing the head somehow to explode in back instead of out the front. But I find him and Matthews just as disgusting as Horne does.

Horne: (Hill) "described all of that again today on television with Chris Matthews. Anyone familiar with his 1963 written report, and with his 1964 sworn testimony, also knows that in this 1964 testimony before Assistant Warren Commission Counsel Arlen Specter, he said that a large portion of the rear of President Kennedy's head was lying in the back seat of the car, and that the trunk lid was covered with bloody water and brain issue. All of this---the biological debris from her husband's head retrieved by Jacqueline Kennedy from the trunk lid; the large, gaping wound in the right rear of the head of the 35th President of the United States; and the blood and brain tissue sprayed over the trunk lid---all of this, of course, speaks graphically and plainly of a fatal shot from the front, or right front (not a fatal shot from the rear, where the Book Depository was).

Clint Hill knows it, and Chris Matthews knows it. But they pretended otherwise, presumably for all the "low information voters" in the TV audience. The problem for these two guys is, there aren't that many low information (i.e., uneducated or stupid) voters watching this show. The show has a very highly educated audience. So what they did was not only grossly dishonest---it was blatantly offensive, as well as just plain dumb.

Speer: No. Horne's pretending he knows what Hill and Matthews "know" is just plain dumb, and arrogant, and in the case of Hill, cruel. There is NO evidence these men EVER thought this wound was an exit for a bullet entering elsewhere. ALL the evidence, in fact, indicates that Hill thought the bullet impacted at the back of the head...from behind.

Horne: Now, anyone who has read about the JFK assassination knows that every doctor who treated JFK at the the side of his gurney in Trauma Room One at Parkland Hospital, in Dallas, described the same head wound that Clint Hill did in 1963 and 1964: a wound that could only have been an EXIT WOUND, which meant that the fatal shot had to come from the front, or right front, not from behind. Not one doctor at Parkland who wrote a treatment report the day of the assassination mentioned anything in those reports but a wound in the right rear of the skull. (And no onementioned any damage to the top of his head or the right side of his head above the ear.) If you don't believe me, read the treatment reports (they were published in the Warren Report, after all). The wound described by these Parkland treating physicians and nurses that day was an avulsed wound (exploded outward from within), and the right rear of JFK's head was devoid of scalp and skull, in an exploded area about the size of a baseball. The head wound observed at Parkland Hospital during the 40 minutes that President Kennedy was treated (that duration was given by Dr. Clark in a press conference that day) had none of the characteristics of an entry wound whatsoever. It had all of the classic characteristics of an exit wound. A large amount of cerebral brain tissue was missing---blown out---and part of the badly damaged cerebellum, the part of the brain very low in the rear of the skull, was extruding from the head wound onto the treatment cart, as the Parkland physicians treated President Kennedy and tried to save his life.

Even Chris Matthews knows that bullets make small holes when entering the body, and large holes when exiting the body. (Especially head wounds.)

Speer: Here Horne goes again, pretending to "know" what Chris Matthews knows so he can turn around and call him a xxxx. The truth is that the Parkland witnesses only saw ONE head wound--a large one, and that a large head wound can be either the exit for a bullet entering elsewhere, or a wound of both entrance and exit. Dr. Clark said he thought the wound was one of both entrance and exit. Dr. McClelland said he saw nothing to indicate the shot came from the front. Horne's assumption all large holes are exits for bullets entering on the opposite side is not only wrong, but in opposition to the statements of the witnesses he supposedly relies upon. Most egregious of all, however, is Horne's claim "Not one doctor at Parkland who wrote a treatment report the day of the assassination mentioned anything in those reports but a wound in the right rear of the skull." This is flat-out wrong. How convenient he forget that Dr. McClelland wrote: "The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple." While it's true Dr. McClelland is now a conspiracy theorist, he has long admitted he became one after viewing the Zapruder film, and that Kennedy's wounds themselves did not convince him a shot came from the front.

In short, Horne attacks Hill and Matthews for failing to admit what "everyone knows" when the witnesses Horne uses to support his arguments--the Parkland witnesses--presumably part of "everyone"--also fail to "know this." The result is embarrassing, IMO. It's like a Knicks fan calling Charles Barkley a xxxx for failing to admit the Knicks are better than the Heat, when all evidence suggests both that Barkley actually believes the Heat are better than the Knicks, and that he has good reason to think so.

Livingstone has written 25 published books, as well as plays, movie scripts, novels and poetry. But Kennedy's assassination has consumed most of his adult life.His obsession with the case has spilled into six published volumes (all available at the Monterey Public Library), three of which made the New York Times bestseller list. "High Treason: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy; What Really Happened" and its sequel sold more copies than any other JFK conspiracy books in history.His 2004 book, "The Hoax of the Century: Decoding the Forgery of the Zapruder Film," lays out evidence that the home movie of the assassination was drastically doctored before it was shown to the press and public.

Livingstone believes his findings are being validated today by FBI and Secret Service agents who were on duty in Dallas when Kennedy was killed — men now going public with their information.One of those agents, Clint Hill, famously leaped onto the back of the limousine to protect first lady Jackie Kennedy. Livingstone said Hill's April 6 NBC interview promoting his own memoir, "Mrs. Kennedy and Me," corroborated his findings, providing renewed hope that the truth about the president's murder, and its cover-up, will finally come to light.

For Livingstone, it's none too soon. He has stage 4 cancer and said doctors are unable to give him a definitive prognosis about his longevity.

The truth is that the Parkland witnesses only saw ONE head wound--a large one, and that a large head wound can be either the exit for a bullet entering elsewhere, or a wound of both entrance and exit. Dr. Clark said he thought the wound was one of both entrance and exit.

If the large wound (which "everyone knows" is characteristic of an exit wound) was not an exit wound but "a wound of both entrance and exit" (which, I assume, means a tangential wound or from side to side, not one in which the bullet entered from behind then exited the way it came), this would seem to mean that the shot came not from the front or from behind but from JFK's right. Where would that place the shooter? Some place that everyone has been ignoring?

The truth is that the Parkland witnesses only saw ONE head wound--a large one, and that a large head wound can be either the exit for a bullet entering elsewhere, or a wound of both entrance and exit. Dr. Clark said he thought the wound was one of both entrance and exit.

If the large wound (which "everyone knows" is characteristic of an exit wound) was not an exit wound but "a wound of both entrance and exit" (which, I assume, means a tangential wound or from side to side, not one in which the bullet entered from behind then exited the way it came), this would seem to mean that the shot came not from the front or from behind but from JFK's right. Where would that place the shooter? Some place that everyone has been ignoring?

IF the bullet entered near the top of the head at a shallow angle, from either in front or behind the President, it could leave a wound of both entrance and exit. While the placement of this wound by the witnesses on the "right rear quadrant" would seem to suggest a shot fired from the front and slightly to the right, the fact is none of the Parkland doctors said as much, and a wound in this location would also be consistent with a bullet's being fired from above and behind, clipping off the right rear of the skull as the President leaned forward.

Now, I have come to believe that the recollections of the Parkland witnesses were off a bit, and that the wound was actually a few inches further forward on the skull than most remembered, but I will agree that it's not ridiculous to believe they were right, provided one sticks to the facts, and refuses to twist the words of the Parkland witnesses into a claim they all thought the wound was an exit for a bullet entering elsewhere, and that they all doubted the conclusions of the autopsy report, and that they all thought the autopsy photos were fake, etc.

I mean, when I first started reading about this case, I felt sorry for these poor doctors who I assumed knew the truth but were then pummeled into submission. The more I read, however, the more I realized that the vast majority of the Parkland witnesses were not conspiracy theorists at all, and had, as but one example, come to accept the brain they saw on the cart was macerated cerebrum, not cerebellum. The question then became if it made any sense to push that someone actually saw something when that person had readily admitted he'd been mistaken, and had denounced those claiming he wasn't.

By way of example, if 10 people having a picnic all claimed to see a cigar-shaped UFO, even though news footage of the day shows the Goodyear blimp on the horizon, I MIGHT believe them. But if, from reading up on the incident, I discovered that the majority of these witnesses later said "Yeah, I guess what I saw was the blimp," my confidence in their UFO claims would waiver, to the point where I'd assume they ALL had been mistaken.

The truth is that the Parkland witnesses only saw ONE head wound--a large one, and that a large head wound can be either the exit for a bullet entering elsewhere, or a wound of both entrance and exit. Dr. Clark said he thought the wound was one of both entrance and exit.

If the large wound (which "everyone knows" is characteristic of an exit wound) was not an exit wound but "a wound of both entrance and exit" (which, I assume, means a tangential wound or from side to side, not one in which the bullet entered from behind then exited the way it came), this would seem to mean that the shot came not from the front or from behind but from JFK's right. Where would that place the shooter? Some place that everyone has been ignoring?

IF the bullet entered near the top of the head at a shallow angle, from either in front or behind the President, it could leave a wound of both entrance and exit. While the placement of this wound by the witnesses on the "right rear quadrant" would seem to suggest a shot fired from the front and slightly to the right, the fact is none of the Parkland doctors said as much, and a wound in this location would also be consistent with a bullet's being fired from above and behind, clipping off the right rear of the skull as the President leaned forward.

Now, I have come to believe that the recollections of the Parkland witnesses were off a bit, and that the wound was actually a few inches further forward on the skull than most remembered, but I will agree that it's not ridiculous to believe they were right, provided one sticks to the facts, and refuses to twist the words of the Parkland witnesses into a claim they all thought the wound was an exit for a bullet entering elsewhere, and that they all doubted the conclusions of the autopsy report, and that they all thought the autopsy photos were fake, etc.

I mean, when I first started reading about this case, I felt sorry for these poor doctors who I assumed knew the truth but were then pummeled into submission. The more I read, however, the more I realized that the vast majority of the Parkland witnesses were not conspiracy theorists at all, and had, as but one example, come to accept the brain they saw on the cart was macerated cerebrum, not cerebellum. The question then became if it made any sense to push that someone actually saw something when that person had readily admitted he'd been mistaken, and had denounced those claiming he wasn't.

By way of example, if 10 people having a picnic all claimed to see a cigar-shaped UFO, even though news footage of the day shows the Goodyear blimp on the horizon, I MIGHT believe them. But if, from reading up on the incident, I discovered that the majority of these witnesses later said "Yeah, I guess what I saw was the blimp," my confidence in their UFO claims would waiver, to the point where I'd assume they ALL had been mistaken.

But that's me.

First, why would you bring up UFO's in this post? Weird.

Second, there is a very distinct difference in the appearance of cerebrum versus cerebellar tissue. These doctors would know that difference. It is highly unlikely that ANY of them would have been mistaken about it. You are implying that all or the majority of them later retracted their first impressions of the tissue because they had been mistaken? That dog don't hunt.

Third, the autopsy X-rays and photographs have been PROVEN to be fabrications by David Mantik, MD, PhD.

Second, there is a very distinct difference in the appearance of cerebrum versus cerebellar tissue. These doctors would know that difference. It is highly unlikely that ANY of them would have been mistaken about it. You are implying that all or the majority of them later retracted their first impressions of the tissue because they had been mistaken? That dog don't hunt.

Third, the autopsy X-rays and photographs have been PROVEN to be fabrications by David Mantik, MD, PhD.

David Mantik on Black Op Radio:

http://www.blackopradio.com/pod/black571.mp3

As I wrote the UFO analogy, the thought occurred that some might see this as my trying to discredit conspiracy theorists in general, when that was not my intention. I am on the fence about UFOs. While I accept the possibility Earth has been visited from other planets, I also accept the probability the vast majority of UFO sightings have a reasonable explanation not involving space travel.

As far as the cerebrum/cerebellum argument, your friend Livingston volunteered that macerated cerebrum and cerebellum could be mistaken. He just didn't think the Parkland doctors would make that mistake. Well, a number of them claimed they'd made that mistake (Carrico and Jenkins come to mind, and Perry, if I recall, denied ever claiming to see cerebellum). So, who are we to believe, Dr. Livingston's impressions of what mistakes a doctor can make? Or the doctors themselves?

It's clear the doctors themselves have a better feel for the probability they'd made a mistake than someone they've never even talked to. Oh, that's right. Some sources have it that Livingston claimed he'd talked to one or more of the Parkland doctors on 11-22-63. Did he ever tell you that?

As far as can be determined, for that matter, the only doctor pushing the "I saw cerebellum" story since the 80's has been McClelland. Problem is, however, that McClelland has repeatedly claimed the wound he saw did not indicate a shot from the front. And he initially claimed the wound was of the left temple. And he's been claiming for 20 years now he drew or had drawn a famous drawing whose creation he'd in fact had nothing to do with... So credibility isn't his strong suit...

As far as Mantik, while I initially deferred to his expertise and supported his research, I have long since discovered that his conclusions are thoroughly unreliable. He responded to my criticisms last year, but dug himself a deeper hole by pushing an interpretation of an x-ray that is obviously in error.